Right Wing Nut House

Amidst whispers that his campaign has stalled, that he has waited to long to announce, and that there is disarray at the top staff levels of his operation, Fred Thompson made a pilgrimage of sorts to visit one of Washington’s old wise men.

David S. Broder is the dean of Washington political columnists. Beyond that, Broder has been a sounding board, father confessor, straight man, and sometimes the fool for politicians from both parties for nearly three decades. When the high and mighty find themselves in trouble or in need of an honest broker in the press, they frequently seek Broder out (or Broder, the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist in him sensing a good story seeks them out) to have their ideas exposed in a forum that gives them instant credibility.

Thompson recently sat down for coffee with Broder and in a column in Thursday’s Washington Post, the candidate made it clear that he was going to “go bold” in his presidential campaign by addressing issues that none of the candidates from either party were talking about.

Specifically, he wants his campaign to talk about the two 800 pound gorillas in America’s living room; entitlement reform and the underlying deficit which threaten the fiscal health and economic well being of the next generation. And his desire to be president, he says, goes beyond personal ambition:

“There’s no reason for me to run just to be president,” he said. I don’t desire the emoluments of the office. I don’t want to live a lie and clever my way to the nomination or election. But if you can put your ideas out there — different, more far-reaching ideas — that is worth doing.

It is those ideas that will almost certainly set him apart from other candidates running. Whether they will bring him the victory he desires is, as Broder points out, “a gamble:”

The difficulties outlined in federal procurement, personnel, finances and information technology remain today, Thompson said, and increasingly “threaten national security.” His second sourcebook contains the scary reports from Comptroller General David Walker, the head of the Governmental Accountability Office, on the long-term fiscal crisis spawned by the aging of the American population and the runaway costs of health care. Walker labels the current patterns of federal spending “unsustainable,” and warns that unless action is taken soon to improve both sides of the government’s fiscal ledger — spending and revenues — the next generation will suffer.

“Nobody in Congress or on either side in the presidential race wants to deal with it,” Thompson said. “So we just rock along and try to maintain the status quo. Republicans say keep the tax cuts; Democrats say keep the entitlements. And we become a less unified country in the process, with a tax code that has become an unholy mess, and all we do is tinker around the edges.”

High risk, indeed. There is a reason no one is talking about these issues. They tend to divide the voters. A presidential race is all about uniting as many people under your banner as possible without making too many others mad at you. Angry people vote. And fiddling with entitlements, the tax code, and restoring fiscal sanity (which will almost surely touch many programs favored by the middle class), is a recipe to get a lot of people very, very mad at you.

But for Thompson, no guts, no glory might just be the bywords of his coming campaign. And looking at the political landscape as August begins to turn into September and his expected formal announcement to enter the race around Labor Day, Thompson is seeing a very steep hill to climb in order to overtake his rivals for the nomination.

Governor Mitt Romney, fresh off his expected straw poll victory in Ames last weekend, is comfortably ahead in both Iowa and New Hampshire. His impressive organization raised $20 million in the last quarter reported to the FEC. He also loaned his own campaign more than $2 million which highlights the very deep pockets Governor Romney will have going into the caucuses and primaries next January.

Thompson’s other main rival, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani didn’t compete in Ames, finishing a distant 6th. But he is comfortably ahead in most of the primary states including Florida and California where he is beating Thompson and Romney by almost a 2-1 margin. Giuliani also has an top notch organization and has raised almost as much as Romney - $15 million in the last quarter reported to the FEC.

Thompson has been hampered in his fund raising by an FEC rule that prohibits him from asking for more money than he can reasonably be expected to use on his exploratory committee. His $3.5 million raised last month was slightly below the $5 million he expected to raise. The real questions will be answered once he begins to campaign and raise money in earnest after he announces. Can he keep pace with the Giuliani/Romney juggernauts?

Probably not. This is why his gamble in taking on divisive issues may be his only chance at success. In effect, he will be running almost outside the party establishment, trying to appeal to conservative Republicans and right-leaning independents to stitch together a winning coalition. The odds are long but at this point, Thompson must feel he has little choice.

Fred Thompson’s “front porch” internet campaign is now over. It accomplished as much as could be expected - taking him from relative obscurity and placing him in the top tier of Republican presidential contenders. It laid the groundwork for his coming campaign by exciting some on line activists and bloggers who will prove valuable once he announces next month.

But the next stage of the Thompson campaign will prove to be a much different proposition. It will be an ideological high wire act where he will seek to outline a very different vision for America than his opponents while trusting that the American people will be able to see beyond their own narrow interests and vote for an uncertain future.

A tall order, that. If he is able to pull it off, it just might change the face of American politics. If not, he’ll be remembered as just another political Cassandra, destined to fail in his quest to sound the alarm about the fundamental direction in which the country is headed.

This article originally appears in The American Thinker.

It is an axiom in politics that “Winning is better than losing.” That obvious conclusion can be deceptive in certain circumstances - such as when finishing second or third is just as good as winning. Or not playing the game at all is as good as losing. All depends on perception - that artificially generated instant conventional wisdom bequeathed to the public by people who think they know more about politics than the rest of us.

But do they? The trick in being a good political pundit is not in formulating wildly original analysis or penetrating insights into “what it all means.” Rather, it is much better to say exactly what everyone else is saying except be meaner, or funnier, or more serious, or more dismissive than the next fellow. A good turn of the phrase and an attitude will bring you stardom in punditland.

This is important to keep in mind when looking at the gigantic block party the Republicans threw in Ames, Iowa on Saturday. Known by pundits as the Ames Straw Poll, it pitted Mitt Romney not against any other candidate but against the expectations set up beforehand by the punditocracy. What were those expectations? Romney must “do well.”

Okay, can we define “do well?” In order to “do well,” Romney must “exceed expectations.”

See how easy it is to be a political pundit?

A little more serious pre-block party analysis would be that Romney should receive at least as much of the vote at the straw poll as he was getting statewide. In this. Mr. Romney succeeded in exceeding expectations. The latest University of Iowa poll has Romney getting 27% of the vote, comfortably ahead of Rudy Giuliani who trails with 18%. At the Ames Hoe Down, Romney walked away with 31% of the 14,000 votes cast. And since his two main rivals - Giuliani and former Senator Fred Thompson - weren’t competing, it could be said that Romney won big in Ames while Giuliani lost. Thompson, not formally declared as a candidate yet, gets a pass from pundits on this one.

So what to make of Romney’s win. The clever pundit will point out that Romney spent scads of money on advertising and to bus thousands of his supporters to the party - probably in excess of $3 million. It works out to more than $600 per voter which is a steep price to pay in order to “exceed expectations.”

But hold on for a minute. Finishing second in Ames was none other than the former governor of Arkansas Mike Huckabee. The Huckster spent next to nothing and captured 18% of the vote. To say Mr. Huckabee “exceeded expectations” is just not good enough, not if you want to be a complete pundit. The correct response when querried as to how Mr. Huckabee did in the Ames Straw Poll is he pulled off “a surprise.” This is one step below “a shocker” which is a rarely used term in the pundit vocabulary. “A shocker” is reserved for those delicious circumstances when the front runner fails to exceed expectations and is defeated by someone the punditocracy had previously considered “a surprise.”

Then there are those who exceed expectations but nobody cares. Third place finisher in Ames Sam Brownback fills the bill perfectly there. Brownback mounted a negative telephone campaign against front runner Mitt Romney, accusing him of flip flopping on abortion and touting his own credentials as the truest social conservative available. Governor Huckabee might have something to say about that claim but the tactic worked. Brownback finished with 15% and while he was hoping for second place, he crowed about his 3rd place finish that it made him a “viable” candidate. The term “viable” is used by politicians when they don’t think the pundits take them seriously. In Brownback’s case, he is correct.

Finally, there are those politicians who don’t exceed expectations, don’t meet expectations, and don’t even get a whiff of what an expectation might be. They are not important enough for pundits to bother with setting expectations. They have no chance of being a surprise or a shocker.

They are the walking dead of the campaign, zombies who don’t even rate a press pool on when they’re going to drop out - that is, if anyone is covering them. Poor Tommy Thompson, former governor of Wisconsin and one of the smartest pols running for president in either party was the designated wraith at this event. His 5th place finish put him behind GOP gadfly Ron Paul and just in front of Fred Thompson who hasn’t even been to Iowa yet. Not even able to exceed his own expectations of finishing first or second, Thompson gracefully bowed out of the race on Sunday.

And after all the analyzing and judging, all the serious and unserious dissections of what happened and what it all means, the pundits all got together and decided that the entire exercise was a waste of time. It doesn’t mean anything they assure us. We’re still five months from the caucuses. Plenty of time for one or more of the also rans to challenge Romney and his deep pockets in Iowa.

To sum up; after creating expectations for the candidates and giving plenty of ink to both the build up to Ames and the aftermath, the pundits have sagely informed us that it doesn’t mean squat.

See? Anyone can be a pundit. All you need is unbelievable arrogance and the ability to take yourself too seriously.

Mitt Romney spent about $660 per voter to win the Ames Straw Poll held yesterday on the campus of Iowa State University. And that might be low balling the amount. Rudy Giuliana said he didn’t want to spend the $3 million it would take to be competitive at the event which means Mitt spent at least that much and probably much more. The long and short of it is that Romney could not afford anything less than a big win in Ames and he got it.

Let’s hope Mitt can make some economies between now and election day (if he gets the nomination). Spending $600 bucks a voter might not be too bad for a straw poll but when you multiply it by the 60 million votes that Bush got in 2004, you’re talking about spending an amount equal to the national debt of most countries on earth.

Romney had the most to lose at this straw poll. The question being asked today is does his victory matter? And does the non-participation of Giuliani, McCain, and Thompson hurt their chances when it will count next January?

The answer to both questions is not much. The most recent polls have Romney ahead by 10 points in Iowa. If he can maintain or expand that lead for another 2 or 3 months, look for Giuiani and McCain to pull out of Iowa to concentrate on later primaries. In the game of expectations - which is what the Iowa caucuses are all about - leaving the field to Romney will blunt some of the momentum he would ordinarily get coming out of the Hawkeye state. In fact, it may put pressure on Romney to “run up the score” in Iowa as anything less than a big win without the presence of the other frontrunners will not give him any momentum at all.

Finishing second in the straw poll was Mike Huckawho…or is it Huckawhat. I’ve said it before and I will say it again. If the American people elect a man named Huckabee president, I will move to Australia. Or maybe Montana.

The former Arkansas governor benefited from the absence of 3 of the top 4 candidates, including Fred Thompson who garnered 200 votes without even showing his face in Iowa. The former Tennessee Senator plans on visiting the state this week but it is unclear if he will spend his limited funds in mounting a challenge to Romney.

Finishing 3rd was Senator Sam Brownback, darling of the social conservatives, who closed fast the last two weeks by mounting a negative telephone campaign against Romney, accusing the former Massachusetts governor of switching his position on abortion.

Big surprise since this is where both Romney and Giuliani are most vulnerable; not their positions on abortion but the fact that they’ve changed their minds about the issue. One can just see Hillary and James Carville salivating over running against either one of those flip floppers.

Perhaps the least newsworthy item to come out of the straw poll was the probability of Tommy Thompson withdrawing from the race. Most Americans didn’t even know he was running, don’t know who he is, and could care less. That just about sums up my feelings on the matter as well.

So Romney in a walk with Huckathing crowing that he’s the shocker of the day and Tommy Thompson crying in his beer over what might have been (What might have been if his name was Kennedy and he had a gazillion dollars.)

And many of us could really care less. I don’t think it shows much of anything to hire a couple of hundred buses to get people who may or may not be your supporters to a straw vote. Getting them to caucus sites in the dead of winter will be the real trick. And Romney appears to have the organization, the money, and the strength to carry that off as well.

What do you believe would happen if American forces invaded Pakistan to go after the Taliban without the permission of the Musharraf government?

Most analysts expect the Pakistani people would pour into the streets in protest, destablizing that already fragile country to the point that it would be possible for a much more conservative, Taliban friendly government to emerge from the chaos. Pakistan is already the most anti-American country in the world following our invasion of Afghanistan. It would be stupid to invade and threaten Musharraf’s hold on power.

Pakistan has 60 nuclear weapons. Need anything else be said about a government with that kind of destructive power in their hands with ties to al-Qaeda and the Taliban?

Evidently, this doesn’t concern Senator Barak Obama:

In a strikingly bold speech about terrorism scheduled for this morning, Democratic presidential candidate Illinois Sen. Barack Obama will call not only for a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, but a redeployment of troops into Afghanistan and even Pakistan with or without the permission of Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf.

“

“I understand that President Musharraf has his own challenges,” Obama will say, according to speech excerpts provided to ABC News by his campaign, “but let me make this clear. There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an al Qaeda leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won’t act, we will.”

Blogger Sister Toldjah asks the obvious question: “Would this be before or after those unconditional meetings he would have with the world’s most despotic ‘leaders’?”

In fact, that remark about meeting with the thugs of the world without any preliminaries has evidently cost Obama dearly. The most recent NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll has Hillary Clinton widening her lead over the Illinois Senator to 43% - 22%. That’s up a whopping 14% since June and shows that Obama’s foreign policy gaffes are not giving Democrats or the American people much confidence in his abilities.

If Obama thought sounding a touger note in his foreign policy speeches would help, he might have least chosen a target to invade who was already an enemy of the United States. By showing a willingness to take the chance of handing al-Qaeda a nuclear weapon on a silver platter, Obama proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that he is not ready to be President now nor possibly ever.

COURAGE!

Dorothy: Your Majesty, If you were King, you wouldn’t be afraid of anything?
Lion: Not nobody, not nohow!
Tin Man: Not even a rhinocerous?
Lion: Imposserous!
Dorothy: How about a hippopotamus?
Lion: Why, I’d trash him from top to bottomamus!
Dorothy: Supposin’ you met an elephant?
Lion: I’d wrap him up in cellophant!
Scarecrow: What if it were a brontosaurus?
Lion: I’d show him who was King of the Forest!
All Four: HOW?
Lion: How?
Courage!
What makes a King out of a slave?
Courage!
What makes the flag on the mast to wave?
Courage!
What makes the elephant charge his tusk, in the misty mist or the dusky dusk? What makes the muskrat guard his musk?
Courage!
What makes the sphinx the seventh wonder?
Courage!
What makes the dawn come up like thunder?
Courage!
What makes the Hottentot so hot? What puts the “ape” in apricot? What have they got that I ain’t got?
All Four: COURAGE!
Lion: You can say that again…

I was trying to decide whether to use this classic Bert Lahr bit from Wizard of Oz or another classic bit from Monty Python and the Holy Grail to illustrate how totally disgusted I am with Republican presidential candidates who fear getting questions via YouTube from well meaning but nutty citizens that would be gleefully culled and chosen by those totally impartial and fair minded editors and producers at CNN.

Hugh Hewitt, with what we assume will soon be the official Mitt Romney position, cries Humbug!

If the GOP candidates agree to this format, expect a series of cheap shots about all of the top tier candidates. Patrick worries that the Republicans will appear behind the times if they take a pass. Perhaps, but if that means skipping a no win set-up where MSM agenda journalists work for weeks to put a video shiv into one or more of the Big Three, I am for it. The second tier folks will no doubt show up hoping for a Hail mary moment, but Giuliani, Romney and Thompson ought to say no thanks.

To illustrate,take a look at this story –a bit of agenda journalism that Jonathan Martin at Politico.com told me on air today is built on a story that has been floating around for months. Imagine some YouTube video asking Rudy why he’s defending a suspected pedophile. No MSMer would dare ask such a loaded question, but imagine what the gang at CNN would do. They covered for the Dems with a series of overwhelmingly left-biased questions at the first YouTube debate, with a very few tough, serious questions thrown in. That dynamic would change completely in a GOP YouTube debate –they or their counterparts at a different network will be gunning for the Republicans, and the question set will be designed to embarrass or ridicule.

Hugh is missing the point. It’s not a question of partisanship necessarily. It’s a question of putting on a good show.

If you’re all doe eyed and worshipful about the “freedom of the press” and our grand experiment in democracy being safeguarded by these noble knights with printers ink on their fingers, allow me to disabuse you of something; these guys are not very noble and the only freedom they care about is the one that says they can make gobs of money while pretending to be journalists. Paddy Chayefsky’s nightmare screenplay Network has come true with a vengeance. It’s not about the news. It’s show business. CNN, Fox, MSNBC - the lot of them - are in “the boredom killing business” as Chayefsky so sharply observed.

Even more basic than that, it’s all about eyeballs. The news nets want your eyeballs and like the carny barkers of old, will do or say just about anything to make you stop clicking the remote long enough - 3 or 4 minutes at the outside - to watch as they dangle shiny, pretty, horrifying, funny, dramatic, titillating, and blood boiling baubles made of people and events in front of your eyes. Their goal; make you stick around until after the commercial break.

Are they partisan? Sure they are. But above and beyond that, they are consummate showmen. And a bunch of conservative Christian white men standing on stage all in a row like ducks in an old fashioned shooting gallery is just too much of a target rich environment to pass up. They’ll have every group of special pleaders (who happen to be Democratic constituencies) eager to get their shots in. Why do Republicans hate blacks? Or Hispanics? Or women? Or children. Or puppy dogs?

In the Democratic debate, the entertainment value came from the questioners themselves. The snowman, the guy who called his rifle “baby” - CNN could have cared less about the efficacy of the questions as long as the people asking them were interesting to look at.

The GOP debate would be a little different. Hugh is correct about the kinds of questions that would be chosen. But here, the entertainment value would be watching the Republican candidates squirm. The chickenhawk questions would be most entertaining - from CNN’s point of view. And can you imagine some gay guy asking Brownback why he’s persecuting him? Perfect!

So why bother, Hewitt is asking?

For God’s sake, Hugh! These people want to be President of the United States! If they can’t stand up to a little tough questioning from Democratic partisans (CNN included) how in God’s name are they going to stand up to Ahmadinejad who I guarantee will feel a helluva lot more empowered come November, 2008 than a gay guy from New York asking about gay marriage!

There would be something unseemly about Republicans ducking this debate - sort of like being too frightened to walk into a dark room full of treasure where you’ve been told a vicious beast is ready to pounce and eat you. That doesn’t mean you don’t go into the room. It means that you grab yourself a set of night vision goggles and the biggest gun in your arsenal and you go and face down the beast and grab the loot.

If Republicans don’t believe strongly enough in their ideals, then perhaps they should skip the debate. Case in point was Obama’s response to the question about meeting the thugs of the world his first year in office without pre-conditions. It’s a stupid idea. But was there any doubt in your mind that Obama didn’t believe in his answer 120%? Hillary has tried to make political hay out of Obama’s naivety but isn’t getting very far because people know that Obama believes what he’s saying.

Does Romney mean it when he says he’s anti-abortion or anti-gay marriage? Does Rudy believe it when he says he’ll name strict constructionists to the Supreme Court? Does anyone believe anything John McCain says anymore?

The GOP is in crisis because it has no leadership, no agenda, and is failing the test of history. It’s principles have crashed on the shoals of expediency and arrogance. It insists on putting its social agenda front and center in the mistaken belief that Americans care more about preventing gay people from getting married then whether they’ll have a job in six months. Or how in God’s name we’re going to get out of Iraq without leaving a bloody mess.

Stay away from the debate and the American people will judge you cowards. The press will see to that. Stand up like men, take your lumps, give back as good as you get, don’t fear the unknown, and move forward.

Or, perhaps the man behind the curtain will give you what you really need; a permanent pass to the back benches of government where you belong if you skip this debate.

I find the imbroglio over Senator Barak Obama’s remark that he would be willing to meet with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea without pre-conditions amusing on several levels.

First, who is surprised that a man of the far left would be naive enough to make himself available as a propaganda tool for our deadliest enemies? The belief among liberals that their purity of heart and plain, simple goodness will warm the cockles of beasts like Assad or Kim Jong Il has been part and parcel of lefty dogma since before Americans were accused of having “an inordinate fear of communism.”

Hence, the man who uttered those words before visiting Moscow and kissing a senile Brezhnev on the cheek 5 months before the old coot ordered Soviet troops into Afghanistan could genuinely be heartbroken at such a monstrous betrayal of “trust.” Who would have guessed that the Soviets would double cross us like that?

The answer at the time was just about anyone who chose to see the Soviets for what they were.

Obama seems to have a similar problem in identifying the difference between genuine diplomacy and handing an opponent your head on a platter. Perhaps he should ask Nancy Pelosi, the highest ranking American leader to visit with President Bashar Assad of Syria in many years how well that kind of face to face diplomacy works.

Since Pelosi’s disastrous visit with Assad (in which she embarrassed herself and the United States by claiming she passed along a message of peace from Prime Minister Olmert - a notion quickly and brutally shot down by the Israeli foreign office) President Assad has proven just how easily he played his American visitor for a fool.

Just exactly what has the Syrian President been up to since that April visit?

* He let loose the Palestinian/al-Qaeda inspired terrorist group Fatah al-Islam on the Lebanese government.

* His forces have occupied areas inside the Lebanese border, building revetments and digging trenches.

* The flow of foreign fighters into Iraq - about 80 a month - has not slackened one bit.

* According to the UN he has resupplied Hebzbullah with arms and missiles to the point that the terrorist group has bragged they are as strong today as they were prior to their aggression against Israel last summer.

* He has continued his attempts to intimidate the Lebanese government, trying to force them into bringing the pro-Syrian opposition to power.

This is what has been confirmed. Much more troublemaking by Assad has been suspected including plots to murder anti-Syrian Lebanese as well as foment a civil war in that tiny country. And his plans to destabilize the Golan Heights the same way he’s roiling the streets of Lebanon are well known by the Israelis.

What Pelosi’s face to face meeting accomplished was clear; zero for America and a PR triumph for Assad. Even non-competitive liberals have got to see that score as a losing proposition.

Now take Pelosi’s gaffe and imagine President Obama in Caracas with that smiling goat of a President-for-life Chavez introducing our hero to the multitudes of Venezuelans paid to go into the streets (or perhaps genuinely curious to see an American president handing a sworn enemy a propaganda coup). Does Chavez inch away from Tehran. Does he drop his support of the drug cartel/terrorists/communist revolutionaries in FARC? Does he stop his meddling in other South American countries?

Not likely. But Chavez has gotten exactly what he wants - legitimacy offered up on a silver platter by an American president.

Hillary has called Obama’s plan to take the 50 cent tour of America’s enemies “irresponsible and naive.” Actually, she’s probably upset she didn’t think of it first. For his part, Obama was backtracking but only slightly:

“What she’s somehow maintaining is my statement could be construed as not having asked what the meeting was about. I didn’t say these guys were going to come over for a cup of coffee some afternoon,” he said.

He added Clinton is making a larger point.

“From what I heard, the point was, well, I wouldn’t do that because it might allow leaders like Hugo Chavez to score propaganda points,” he said. “I think that is absolutely wrong.”

He likened the position to a continuation of the Bush administration diplomatic policies. And he said what was “irresponsible and naive” was voting to authorize the Iraq War.

I gather from those comments that as long as there was an agenda for such meetings, he’d attend. Fair enough. But Hillary’s point was that beyond an agenda, diplomacy is a two way street. In other words “What’s in it for us?”

Atmospherics mean little when Iran is trying to bring the entire post World War II structure of alliances and relationships crashing down in order to drive America and the west out of the Middle East. Is there anything Iran can give us - or say anything that we’d believe - that would stop their march toward dominance? The optimists like Hillary would probably say yes. And I shudder to think what she’d be willing to trade for that.

I’d like to believe that Obama’s gaffe would hurt him in the primaries. But from what I’m reading today on lefty blogs, most think the controversy is a non-issue invented by Hillary or actually support the notion of an American president giving a boost to our enemies stature and legitimacy. Most often, the precedent of talking to the Russians comes up in response to foreign policy realists who object to talking to the Damascus Don or the Tehran Terror Enabler. But just what were the Soviets after in agreeing to all of those summits - which were years in planning and carefully scripted? Nothing less than recognition that they were an equal with the United States in superpower status. The fact that they had 25,000 nuclear weapons aimed at us made that a reality that had to be dealt with.

But what of pissant dictators like Chavez? Do we offer him the same stature building, the same legitimacy? What the hell for? No matter what he says, he can’t be trusted to stop trying to foment revolutions in Latin America. Ditto the Iranians and Syrians as far as trusting them to be good global citizens. (Cuba may not be a problem by November of 2008 and Kim may be in a Chinese box by then as well.)

What makes these countries enemies is their desire to damage the interests of the United States. There is nothing concrete that we could offer them that would change that goal. No matter how much spadework was done by our diplomats and envoys, the fact is we would be giving these cutthroats exactly what they want without getting anything of substance in return. Why both Hillary and Obama would even contemplate such meetings only shows that atmospherics will always mean more to the left than what can be accomplished in the real world. And despite talk of our “broken military” and our “waning influence” in the world, I guarantee you that such nonsense is not on the agenda of leadership meetings in Iran and Syria. Potential targets inside their country for American bombs is, however, at the top of the list.

In the end, it is that perception that will modify the behavior of Iran and Syria, not the smiling, good hearted entreaties of naive American presidents who think that because the voters of America found them irresistible that the brutes who wish us ill would similarly be charmed.

Fred Thompson fired his campaign chief today. The reason? Depends who you’re reading:

Tom Collamore, the former Altria lobbyist who had been running Fred Thompson’s campaign, has resigned and will be replaced by Randy Enwright. Enwright is a Florida political hand with ties to former Gov. Jeb Bush. Also coming on board in a leadership capacity is Spencer Abraham, the former Michigan senator and Energy secretary.

“We’re making a number of planned changes as we move to the next phase,” said Thompson communications director Linda Rozett. “We’re adding political muscle to the organization.”

A Thompson aide said that Enwright would serve as the day-to-day manager while Abraham would take more of a campaign chairman capacity.

Collamore will stay on as a “senior adviser” to the effort, but with a diminished role. Accounts vary as to what exactly happened, but Collamore was reportedly unhappy with the level of involvement of Thompson’s wife, Jeri, and others in Thompson’s inner circle found Collarmore not up to the task of overseeing a presidential campaign.

” He needed more political people involved,” said one source close to the campaign.

That’s a very nice way of saying “You shouldn’t have quit your day job, Tom.”

Indeed, some of the pros I speak to on occasion with insight into the inner workings of some of the GOP campaigns told me weeks ago that Collamore was only a temp, that the shoestring operation he was running wouldn’t translate into the basis for a national campaign. In the next 45 days, the Thompson campaign is going to increase in size dramatically and it was frankly felt that Collamore was not up to the challenge.

Also, for these last couple of months, the Thompson people have been working on Jeb Bush hoping to tap into that wellspring of money and experience. They hit paydirt today:

Enwright was to originally serve as Thompson’s political director. A former Florida GOP executive director, worked on Jeb Bush’s ‘94 and ‘98 gubernatorial campaigns. While owning his own consulting firm, Enwright had served as an RNC liaision to the Sunshine State in recent years. Abraham is a longtime Republican operative. Before being elected to the Senate, he was the longtime chair of the Michigan GOP, VP Dan Quayle’s chief of staff and an NRCC co-chair.

Beyond the important contacts in the Midwest that Abraham can bring to the campaign, he’s an excellent choice for a variety of reasons. He’s a very smart, savvy politician who had to win as a Republican in a heavily unionized state. Considering how close Bush came to winning both Wisconsin and Michigan in 2004, having a knowledgeable source for how to run in those states heading up your campaign can only help.

Enwright’s s elevation will not be the last personnel move made at the top of the campaign. It should be interesting to see who Fred will hire as political director. Don’t be surprised if another politico with connections to Jeb the Younger emerges. Wooing the younger Bush has been part of Fred’s strategy for months simply because he needs a win in a big state on National Primary Day to legitimize his campaign and set himself up as a viable alternative to Rudy. His hope is to finish McCain in South Carolina (February 2) and stay alive on National Primary Day (February 5) by picking off a few southern states like Georgia, Alabama, his home state of Tennessee, and West Virginia while winning in Florida and being competitive in California and Illinois, hoping that Rudy and Mitt slug it out elsewhere and neither one is able to get too far ahead.

I can see now why Fred eschewed the traditional route taken by other candidates. He won’t be able to compete with Rudy or Mitt moneywise which means his organization will necessarily be leaner. And while he will probably be forced to compete in New Hampshire (where a third place finish would be perceived as good) which means setting up an office there with paid staff, his real test will come in South Carolina. The Palmetto state is McCain’s Alamo and a solid win by Thompson there would finish the Arizona Senator.

But don’t expect Fred to set up satellite offices in too many states. Media buys will be a nightmare prior to February 5. Most of the funds he raises this quarter and the next will have to be saved for TV. You can’t ignore any state. But expensive media markets like Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York would soak up valuable funds that could better be used where Fred is going to be much more competitive.

Fred appears to be making the right moves. The initial stages of his campaign have gone extremely well. But a word of caution; historically speaking, when campaigns expand at a rapid rate, a few things always seem to be left behind. The organization will experience growing pains and mistakes will almost certainly be made.

Overcoming those mistakes is usually the difference between winning and losing.

Harry Reid wasn’t pulling any punches in this call to action on the Democrat’s Senate blog:

The high temperature in Baghdad today is 113 degrees. But our troops will wear their 100 pounds of gear and bravely go about the jobs that they are given. By nightfall, it is likely that some of them will die. It is certain that more will be wounded. The rest will end another day on foreign sand, not knowing when they will come home to American soil.

“Those 160,000 troops are heroes. Every single one of them. They are serving with courage despite enormous hardships and without even proper equipment. They are serving with courage despite a President who took us into war falsely, prematurely and recklessly. They are serving with courage despite a President who refused to form a coalition of nations to share their awful burden of sacrifice. They are serving with courage despite a President who has never had a plan for peace. And they are serving with courage despite Republicans in Congress who are blocking us from passing laws that will bring a responsible end to the war.

(Italicized portions could have been lifted from 10,000 blog posts and Democratic campaign speeches over the last 4 years. Ed.)

“I want everyone here tonight – every American from coast to coast – to know that we won’t stop fighting until we end this war. That is what this night is all about.

Elegant, symmetrical, logical - and utterly false. Does Harry think people have forgotten that our boys sat in the desert for nearly 5 months waiting on the UN, waiting on our allies, waiting on Saddam to simply comply with one - just one - of the 11 Security Council resolutions passed in the previous ten years? Bush didn’t “refuse” to form a coalition. That would have meant that others offered to help and he turned them down. Or that he didn’t ask our allies for help. Nothing of the sort happened, of course, which makes Harry Reid a bald faced liar about that and other facets of his rewritten history. I will have to congratulate him for condensing The Narrative into two or three paragraphs of pungent, if overwrought prose. And, of course, it is to one end only that all of this hysteria is being ginned up.

Ending the war is easy, Harry. The hard part is answering the question then what?

Despite warnings of catastrophe in Iraq if we pull out precipitously from just about every analyst who has bothered to look at the problem of our disengagement - good, smart people from both parties and both ends of the political spectrum - the Democrats insisted on going to the mattresses last night in their war against a man that they have allowed their hate and loathing to overtake any semblance of common sense and patriotism.

And lest anyone think the Democrats “changing course” in Iraq means that they have a plan to end the war, here’s Senator Levin on that subject:

Does Congress pass legislation to instruct the President on the details of a withdrawal? Do they dictate terms on how to involve NATO or other allies? Or even on how to negotiate with Iran and Syria over the withdrawal? And what if something happens to U.S. troops during the pullout or Iraq rapidly plunges into a bloody civil war as U.S. troops are leaving? Who is to blame? Bush? Congress?

“Those are not decisions that I’m either going to make, or get involved with,” Senate Armed Forces Committee Chairman Carl Levin told TIME. “Assuming everything worked out perfectly, that’s the middle of next year, that’s early next year, so that’s not something that’s we’re focusing on.”

In other words, folks, last night was not about policy. It was not about loving the troops so much you want to bring them home. It was not about any concern whatsoever for Iraq and what would happen if we leave - even in an orderly manner.

Last night was about the politics of blame pure and simple. It was about the Democrats being terrified that caving in to their base on Iraq and bringing the troops home in a Dunkirk style evacuation will precipitate a chain of events in Iraq and the Middle East that would result in genocide, war, and al-Qaeda triumphant.

Being politicians with finely honed instincts for survival and with absolutely no clue about what to do in Iraq (join the club, guys), they seek to shift responsibility for the coming catastrophe precipitated by our withdrawal and all the blunders, errors, mistakes, and stupidities that have marked our adventure in Mesopotamia these last 4 years in order to be able to face the voters and point the finger at their political foes.

This will no doubt serve the purpose of getting them re-elected. And it will also probably serve to increase their numbers substantially when Congress convenes in January of 2009.

But at what price? Remember, the Democrats do not have a plan, do not have a clue on what to do next in Iraq. The “timetable” is a smokescreen. They no more expect Bush to meet that timetable than they do pigs to fly. It is political gamesmanship, nothing more.

Meeting this timetable would lead to rivers of blood being spilled. Bush won’t do it which is great political news for the Democrats. Just think of all the opportunities they will have between now and the election to get up on the floor of the House or Senate and rail against the President and Republicans for not meeting their demands to “end the war.” The Democrats no more want to end the war than al-Qaeda does. “Ending the war” now wouldn’t end anything in Iraq. It would only be the beginning - and Democrats want to be absolutely certain that the resulting chaos and destruction leaves them lily white and blameless.

I suppose it’s too much to ask politicians to put the needs of the country first and their careers and party subservient to that. But one would think that when it comes to confronting the truly great issues of our time, politicians would act like leaders and not screaming infants who have wet their pants or worse, juveniles on a playground sticking out their tongues at one another, trying to shift blame for starting a fight to the other kid.

In the meantime, the Administration remains committed to giving General Petraeus until September to make things better in Iraq. A tall order, that. The Iraqi Parliament, charged with nothing less than saving their country from a bloodbath by coming to grips with issues of power sharing, reconciliation, and political salvation, have decided that August in Bagdad is much to hot and will go into recess in order to cool off.

No word on how our boys, humping 100 pounds of gear in 130 degree heat, risking their lives to give the Iraqi government a chance to deal with its problems might feel about Iraqi parliamentarians taking a break to go to the beach in Dubai. Perhaps we should give them a vacation too. They’ve earned it a helluva lot more than the faithless Iraqi government whose intransigence on every single political issue vitally necessary to bringing their country together is making Petreaus and our boys work themselves to exhaustion for nothing.

Eventually, the Democrats will win out and they’ll get their timetable. And that’s when the pressure from the netnuts will really begin. Democrats will be forced to try and hold Bush’s feet to the fire on sticking to the evacuation while all hell is breaking loose in Iraq. This will give the Democrats additional opportunities to posture. We’ll have more votes about funding the war with more direction from Congress about how to skedaddle in the face of al-Qaeda terrorism and attacks. And the closer to the election, they more strident and unreasonable they will become.

That is, until a Democrat is elected President. Then the calls for bi-partisan unity will ring from the Capitol Dome and all will be peace and harmony. Perhaps they can all get a head start and do that “bi-partisan unity” thing starting now.

Fat chance.

For you lefty trolls out there, here’s some red meat to go with your scrambled eggs and coffee this morning.

And for my conservative friends who enjoy a little introspection on a lazy summer Saturday, here’s a piece that will will give you something to think about while you’re on the golf course waiting for the idiots on the green to stop dicking around and putt already.

First, it appears that Chertoff’s “gut feeling” about an impending attack is being taken seriously by some people in the government. Or, if you’re inclined to wear the latest fashion in tin foil chapeaus (Reynolds Wrap Haute couture is all the rage this summer) it’s just more evidence of Administration tomfoolery with terror alerts:

Fearing a possible coded signal to attack, U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials are studying an unusual pattern of words in the latest audiotape from al Qaeda’s No. 2 man, Ayman al Zawahri.

On the tape, posted on the Internet Wednesday, Zawahri repeats one phrase three times at the end of his message.

Have I not conveyed? Oh God be my witness.

Have I not conveyed? Oh God be my witness.

Have I not conveyed? Oh God be my witness.

A new FBI analysis of al Qaeda messages, obtained by the Blotter on ABCNews.com, warns that “continued messages that convey their strategic intent to strike the U.S. homeland and U.S. interests worldwide should not be discounted as merely deceptive noise.”

A far cry from “John has a long mustache” or “Wounds my heart with a monotonous languor,” no?

Be that as it may, the FBI and Homeland Security seem to be taking this latest threat more seriously than some others lately. As for many on the left, not so much:

Let’s set aside for a moment the hollowness of the threat. Frankly the London and Glasgow plots were ill-conceived and miserably executed. It wouldn’t take much to “dwarf” them. Letting off a firecracker in a movie theater, for example.

First, this smacks of more fear-mongering by the administration. Chertoff had a “gut feeling” we’re going to be attacked, and now you see the media dutifully stoke up the panic with crap stories like this. (Yeah, a Taliban leader threatened big attacks in the US. And the head coach of the Raiders vowed to take his team to the playoffs.) The administration has a history of tweaking with terror alerts and fantasy plots to influence politics. That’s worthy of both impeachment and a swift kick in the *ss.

Second, if this threat is real and imminent, and something actually happens — it’s not the shrapnel I’ll be worrying about, it’ll be the overreaction of the government. This a group of thugs that kidnaps, tortures, and spies on its own people in times of safety. Think what they’ll do when the sh*t flies. Not to mention their track record against your standard-issue emergencies like, say, hurricanes.

I do not want these people in power in a time of emergency.

Well, whether you want them or not, they’re it and it does little good to fantasize about a Pelosi regime doing anything different.

Which brings me to the point of today’s ramblings; the respective views on terrorism and terrorist threats by the two sides and why, because of the viciousness and polarization of our politics, each side sees the other as a bigger threat than the terrorists.

One of the more thoughtful people blogging today is Matthew Yglesias:

Rick Santorum, appearing on the Hugh Hewitt show, predicts “some unfortunate events, that like we’re seeing unfold in the UK” over the next eighteen months or so that are going to lead people to have a “very different view” of the war in Iraq and the vital importance of “confronting Iran in the Middle East.” Avedon Carol wonders if it shouldn’t “concern us that Republicans are constantly talking about how people will all wise up when the next terrorist attack at home comes?” After all, they seem to really be “looking forward to it, and they take great delight in the thought that, by God, people will see things differently when it happens.”

There’s really, even, a larger structural issue here. Namely that while clearly on some level the conservative movement would like to make the country safer from terrorism, on another level everyone knows that mass fear of foreign threats to Americans’ physical security are a boon to the conservative movement’s fortune. On the one hand, this creates systematic incentives to overstate the extent and nature of the real threats facing America. On the other hand, it creates systematic incentives to ensure that such threats as do exist are never ameliorated. In particular, it gives everyone a very strong self-interest in not understanding the extent to which overreacting can be counterproductive since both the overreaction itself and the counterproductive blowback may serve the interests of the Republican Party.

On a superficial level, conservatives must plead guilty as charged. There is a belief by conservatives (not a “wish” or “desire”) that another terrorist attack on the scale of 9/11 would expose the liberal narrative on the War on Terror for what it is; an extraordinary myopic and paranoid view of the threat facing us and of the government charged with protecting us. This narrative is fairly consistent in downplaying the abilities of the enemy, complaining about false or faked terror alerts, ridiculing conservatives for reporting on successful or failed terrorist attacks, and generally positing the notion that the entire War on Terror is a manufactured political sideshow put on by the Bush Administration to jack up fear so that they can tear up the Constitution and set up a dictatorship.

Variations of that narrative exist depending on the reasonableness and thoughtfulness of the liberal writing about it. Some, like Yglesias, take the threat seriously but have huge problems (as many conservatives do) with the Bush Administration’s prosecution of the wider war. Others who are not quite as reasonable or thoughtful have a different perspective:

Democrat John Edwards Wednesday repudiated the notion that there is a “global war on terror,” calling it an ideological doctrine advanced by the Bush administration that has strained American military resources and emboldened terrorists.
In a defense policy speech he planned to deliver at the Council on Foreign Relations, Edwards called the war on terror a “bumper sticker” slogan Bush had used to justify everything from abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison to the invasion of Iraq.

“We need a post-Bush, post-9/11, post-Iraq military that is mission focused on protecting Americans from 21st century threats, not misused for discredited ideological purposes,” Edwards said in remarks prepared for delivery. “By framing this as a war, we have walked right into the trap the terrorists have set—that we are engaged in some kind of clash of civilizations and a war on Islam.”

The mass of Muslims who believe we are attacking all of Islam and not the radical minority are beholden to that idea not because we’ve framed the issue as a war but because of al-Qaeda and other radical Islamic propaganda - something Edwards himself has apparently fallen for. A couple of statements by ignorant American officials (including the President’s incredibly dumb “crusade” remark) that have been played up in Islamic countries do not reflect the policy of the US government in any way. If Edwards wants to criticize our own propaganda efforts, that would be a legitimate criticism. But his adherence to The Narrative in talking about the war as an ideological exercise by the Administration serves to proves my point.

But getting back to Yglesias and his thesis; that while “the conservative movement would like to make the country safer from terrorism, on another level everyone knows that mass fear of foreign threats to Americans’ physical security are a boon to the conservative movement’s fortune…”

The unwritten companion to that idea that Yglesias leaves out is that the reason conservative “fortunes” soar as a result of threats to the homeland is because of the perceived (and in my opinion, rightly so) weakness of the left on security issues. This is not an issue of smoke and mirrors but rather a decades long retreat from the left’s belief in an assertive American foreign policy and funding a military machine to back it up. The modern left never met a weapons system they didn’t try to kill at some point nor has there been an assertive move to protect American interests in the last several decades that they have supported. The American people have taken note of this and voted accordingly.

But what of the notion that this political advantage by conservatives is deliberately fostered by overstating the threat facing us and that this leads to creating “systematic incentives” to make sure the war continues ad infinitum?

The two issues should have been separated by Yglesias because they deal with two different assumptions. 1) Conservatives want to win elections, and 2) The only way the right sees itself as succeeding in this is to make the War on Terror a generational conflict so that a constant state of fear is used as a club to beat the left over the head on security issues.

As for the first part, Yglesias has a point. I think there is a psychological desire on the part of the right to see the country unified behind its point of view on terrorism. And I think this desire at some level includes the notion that the best thing that could happen as far as unifying the country (and making the left’s views on terrorism an irrelevancy) is for a terrorist attack to occur on American soil. I don’t see any “great delight” being exhibited by conservatives in anticipation of such an attack - an attack that every living expert on terrorism has warned is a virtual certainty - nor do I see conservatives “looking forward to it” as Avedon Carol so generously states. But to see the outcome of another 9/11 in superficial political terms, then I think Yglesias has a good point.

Of course, this throws up all sorts of questions about the leadership of President Bush, Republicans in Congress, and conservative intellectuals who have failed miserably in making the case for this wider war on terrorism to the American people. There are other, less destructive ways to unify the country without having an American city reduced to rubble.

But as with the War in Iraq, President Bush has failed to sustain any coherent defense of his policies. This has allowed his political opponents free reign to color his actions in the worst possible light. And while some intellectuals of the right such as Norman Podhoretz and Donald Kagan have defended the Administration’s policies in Iraq and the wider War on Terror, the intellectual underpinnings that should be girding our efforts in the war of ideas against Islamic radicalism as well as offering a rationale for our actions to those willing to listen overseas has been sorely lacking.

As for the second assumption made by Yglesias - that this desire by the right to extend the life of the war by creating “systematic incentives to ensure that such threats as do exist are never ameliorated…” I believe him to be on much shakier ground.

Matthew places that statement in the context of what he terms “over-reacting” to both the threat of terrorism and terrorist incidents themselves. From another Yglesias post following the London/Glasgow incidents:

I’m pretty sure I haven’t been “ignoring” the bomb attempt, but I’ve certainly said less about it than, say, the NBA draft. That said, I find there to be two curious presumptions built into the question. One is that “you’re paying less attention than you should to failed bombings in a foreign country!” is framed as some kind of cutting accusation. Second, is that it’s taken as a given that hyping-up the threat of terrorism is something conservatives will want to do whereas downplaying it is something liberals will want to do.

It’s interesting because on another level if a liberal wants to make the case that Bush has been a horrible president implementing horrible policies, probably the most natural response is to say “look, some of what you say is true, but at the end of the day there haven’t been any more attacks since 9/11.” At that point, it falls to the liberal to point to all this international data indicating a substantial surge in Islamist violence during the Bush years as evidence of the administration’s failures.

Again, on one level, Yglesias has a point. But rather than “over reacting” to gin up fear in the country, I would describe the right’s focus on such attacks - failed or otherwise - as a psychological need to validate their views on terrorism as a genuine threat. (”See? The world is a dangerous place even if liberals downplay these attacks!”) Since part of The Narrative is that there is no such thing as a War on Terror and that even if attacks occur, the jihadis are a bunch of ignorant, 15th century goat herders so there’s no reason for all this fuss, conservatives feel compelled by politics and self-image to play up every incident of terror as part of the larger war against Islamism - a war they feel should engage the continuing interest of the American people to the exclusion of other, more mundane considerations like the economy or health care.

Yglesias points up the political danger of this exercise by the right; that even though no terrorist attacks have occurred here since 9/11, there is little doubt that Administration strategy has created more terrorists than there were prior to that date and that the threat has not been reduced in the nearly 6 years since. I might add there is also a danger for conservatives in that the absence of an attack on our soil since 2001 has brought those “mundane” issues to the fore in 2008, giving Democrats a distinct advantage in domestic policy. Focusing on terrorism as the major concern of the American people is rapidly becoming bad politics - unless we are hit again. Then the question of those increased numbers of jihadis will become a political nuclear weapon with each side tossing screaming allegations back and forth in the aftermath.

I have wrestled with this question of our creating more terrorists by confronting them in several posts over the last year. The reason the question is relevant is because there seems to be a consensus on the left that if only we hadn’t gone into Iraq, the terrorist threat wouldn’t be what it is today.

I find little evidence that our Iraq adventure alone is responsible for the increase in jihadi recruitment. One need only look at the reaction by Pakistanis to our invasion of Afghanistan. Pakistan has become the most anti-American nation on earth not because of our invasion of Iraq but because of what we did to the Taliban.

But the real question remains: Would not confronting the terrorists after 9/11 have made us safer? If we had lobbed a few cruise missiles at Bin Laden’s training camps in Afghanistan rather than going for regime change, would there be Muslim doctors trying to blow up airports? It’s an interesting thought experiment but one I have never seen tried anywhere on the left. They have simply accepted the notion that the War in Iraq is singularly responsible for the surge in terrorist numbers.

And even if there were no terrorists in Iraq prior to the invasion (a still debatable point given the curiously unpublicized revelations contained in the Saddam papers) there’s no doubt there are many in Iraq now. If killing them only creates more of them which in turn makes us less safe, logic would dictate that we basically surrender to the idea that from time to time we are going to be attacked and that the best we can do is work with our allies to mitigate that possibility as much as possible by smashing their cells whenever we find them. Is this the basis of the left’s strategy for dealing with terrorism? It would seem to me and to many conservatives that this forms the basis for a “fear-free” War on Terror that appears to be embraced by many on the left.

Perhaps they don’t like the idea that such a strategy would put them at a distinct electoral disadvantage against Republicans so why not rage against perceived “fear mongering” by the right on the issue. In that context, there’s not much conservatives can do except embrace the left’s strategy for dealing with Islamism which would also include changing our foreign policy so we don’t experience any more “blowback” as a result of our standing with Israel or confronting that other threat in the Middle East Iran.

I’m not sure Yglesias would go as far as that but there’s little doubt that sympathy for the Palestinian cause and a general aversion to confronting the theocrats in Tehran is a part of the left’s solution to Bush’s “failed” policies in the War on Terror. What that would mean as far as our safety and security is concerned is another question - one the American people will have to decide next year. But one thing both left and right better start thinking very hard about if we are attacked again is that the solution to security will eventually have to be found in unity and not in these tiresome partisan dust ups where the motives of both sides are questioned and the War on Terror becomes a weapon to be used by one side or the other for political gain.

UPDATE

Right on cue, Ron Paul shows why unity in the War on Terror is an impossibility at the moment:

Presidential candidate Ron Paul says the U.S. is in “great danger” of a staged terror attack or a Gulf of Tonkin style provocation while also warning that a major collapse of the American economy is on the horizon and could be precipitated by the bombing of Iran and the closure of the Persian Gulf.

“I think we’re in great danger of it,” responded the Congressman, “We’re in danger in many ways, the attack on our civil liberties here at home, the foreign policy that’s in shambles and our obligations overseas and commitment which endangers our troops and our national defense.”

Ooookay, Ron. You can go back to the barbecue now. And next time make sure they don’t grill your brain instead of the steak.

HT for the image: SondraK

Welcome to the 2008 Presidential campaign, Fred Thompson!

Set to announce his candidacy as soon as this week, the former Senator from Tennessee is ready to turn his front porch campaign into a full blown effort to reach for the brass ring. And by doing so, Fred has unleashed those Media Furies whose tried and true methods of smearing and destroying GOP hopefuls has been honed to a fine point through more than 50 years of flinging feces and slinging slime at their ideological opponents.

There’s never been anything subtle about these campaigns. The Furies don’t do nuance. Rather, their attacks are full frontal assaults on decency and the truth - all the better to stick the knife into the vitals of their target and give it a few good twists.

The astonishing thing is that without coordination or “conspiracy,” the three most screechingly anti-Republican news outlets in the country - the LA Times, the NY Times, and the AP - all published what can only be described as “hit pieces” in a period of three days.

Now, it should be said that looking at the record of the Senator while he was a lobbyist is perfectly legitimate journalism and provides the public with pertinent information on Mr. Thompson’s character and qualifications. But this LA Times piece that breathlessly reveals the fact that Fred “lobbied” for a pro-choice outfit in the 1990’s could have used a few fact checkers and editors before it saw print. If they had done so, it is doubtful the “revelation” would have been news at all.

First, the story:

Fred D. Thompson, who is campaigning for president as an antiabortion Republican, accepted an assignment from a family-planning group to lobby the first Bush White House to ease a controversial abortion restriction, according to a 1991 document and several people familiar with the matter.

A spokesman for the former Tennessee senator denied that Thompson did the lobbying work. But the minutes of a 1991 board meeting of the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Assn. say that the group hired Thompson that year.

His task was to urge the administration of President George H. W. Bush to withdraw or relax a rule that barred abortion counseling at clinics that received federal money, according to the records and to people who worked on the matter.

The abortion “gag rule” was then a major political flashpoint. Lobbying against the rule would have placed Thompson at odds with the antiabortion movement that he is now trying to rally behind his expected declaration of a presidential bid.

Thompson spokesman Mark Corallo adamantly denied that Thompson worked for the family planning group. “Fred Thompson did not lobby for this group, period,” he said in an e-mail.

Basically, the family planning outfit swears that Thompson lobbied John Sununu, then Chief of Staff to Bush #41 at the White House. However, not only Thompson denies it but Sununu says it’s a bunch of bull as well:

Sununu said in a telephone interview: “I don’t recall him ever lobbying me on that at all. I don’t think that ever happened. In fact, I know that never happened.” He added that he had “absolutely no idea” whether Thompson had met with anybody else at the White House, but said it would have been a waste of time, given the president’s opposition to abortion rights.

In response to Sununu’s denial, DeSarno said Thompson “owes NFPRHA a bunch of money” if he never talked to Sununu as he said he had.

Absolutely let’s get to the bottom of this. Let’s look at the billing records and any other evidence that the family planning group may have of Thompson’s work on their behalf. All we have right now are the minutes from one meeting where this announcement of hiring Thompson was supposedly made and the accounts of several pro-choice activists.

Not a lot to hang your hat on if you were doing an important story that could potentially affect a presidential race. But the LA Times wasn’t interested in accuracy or the truth. They were interested in smearing Fred Thompson. And with Thompson’s categorical denials as well as Sununu’s supporting testimony, it would seem that either the Times was taken in by this pro-choice group or, more likely, simply saw an opportunity to stick the knife into a leading GOP candidate for President.

This LA Times story could be considered a barely legitimate exercise in journalism disguising a vicious smear designed to lower Thompson’s standing with a key GOP interest group - the anti-abortion crowd. But the New York Times makes absolutely no bones about practicing legitimate journalism in this shocking piece on Thompson’s wife where Times Fashion writer Susan Saulny refers to the Tennessee Senator as “grandfatherly” and Jeri Kehn Thompson as a “trophy wife:”

AS the election of 2008 approaches with its cast of contenders who bring unprecedented diversity to the quest for the White House, the voting public has been called on to ponder several questions: Is America ready for a woman to be president? What about a black man? A Mormon?

Now, with the possible candidacy of Fred D. Thompson, the grandfatherly actor and former Republican senator from Tennessee, whose second wife is almost a quarter-century his junior, comes a less palatable inquiry that is spurring debate in Internet chat rooms, on cable television and on talk radio: Is America ready for a president with a trophy wife?

The question may seem sexist, even crass, but serious people — as well as Mr. Thompson’s supporters — have been wrestling with the public reaction to Jeri Kehn Thompson, whose youthfulness, permanent tan and bleached blond hair present a contrast to the 64-year-old man who hopes to win the hearts of the conservative core of the Republican party. Will the so-called values voters accept this union?

The unbelievable insult to Mr. and Mrs. Thompson written by a Fashion section writer should not surprise us in the least. When putting on the smear, the Times will utilize any section of its publication it sees fit to best highlight where it wants to apply the slime. I suppose the “Style” section would be the best place to talk about a “trophy wife” - if such things were important enough to be included in a presidential campaign. But since they’re not and since Ms. Saulny plays rough and ready with her prose - “but serious people — as well as Mr. Thompson’s supporters” who I guess are not serious people but rather stupid, goober chewing, bible thumping, mouth breathing “values voters” (so-called) and must be instructed in what is obviously an issue that they should cluck their tongues and wag their heads about - it shouldn’t come as a shock the depths to which the Times will sink to savage an ideological foe.

I can’t remember any news outlet printing such a slanderous piece of tripe against a candidate’s wife . Jeri Thompson is no bimbo. She’s an accomplished attorney and by all accounts, smart as a whip. Wouldn’t you love to see a picture of Susan Saulny? What do you think the odds are they her looks and figure suffer by comparison with Mrs. Thompson?

Just wondering.

Finally, this deceptive AP story came out on Saturday with the headline “Fred Thompson aided Nixon on Watergate.” If true, one would guess that Thompson has a lot of explaining to do.

But the story isn’t about Thompson “aiding” Nixon on Watergate. It’s about Thompson doing his job as minority counsel on a Senate investigating committee. Here’s how Thompson described his role in his book At That Point in Time, published in 1975:

Thompson, who declined comment for this story, described himself in his book, “At That Point in Time,” published in 1975, as a Nixon administration “loyalist” who struggled with his role as minority counsel. “I would try to walk a fine line between a good-faith pursuit of the investigation and a good-faith attempt to insure balance and fairness,” Thompson wrote.

The AP story does dispel the myth that Thompson ferreted out the White House taping system information from Alexander Butterfield. Republican investigators had gotten that information from Butterfield days prior to his questioning the White House underling before the cameras. But the guts of this AP hit piece is not so much that Thompson did anything improper, it’s how the Nixon Administration viewed the 30 year old lawyer:

Publicly, Baker and Thompson presented themselves as dedicated to uncovering the truth. But Baker had secret meetings and conversations with Nixon and his top aides, while Thompson worked cooperatively with the White House and accepted coaching from Nixon’s lawyer, J. Fred Buzhardt, the tapes and transcripts show.

“We’ve got a pretty good rapport with Fred Thompson,” Buzhardt told Nixon in an Oval Office meeting on June 6, 1973. The meeting included a discussion of former White House counsel John Dean’s upcoming testimony before the committee.

Dean, the committee’s star witness, had agreed to tell what he knew about the break-in and cover-up if he was granted immunity against anything incriminating he might say.

Nixon expressed concern that Thompson was not “very smart.”

“Not extremely so,” Buzhardt agreed.

“But he’s friendly,” Nixon said.

“But he’s friendly,” Buzhardt agreed. “We are hoping, though, to work with Thompson and prepare him, if Dean does appear next week, to do a very thorough cross-examination.”

Five days later, Buzhardt reported to Nixon that he had primed Thompson for the Dean cross-examination.

“I found Thompson most cooperative, feeling more Republican every day,” Buzhardt said. “Uh, perfectly prepared to assist in really doing a cross-examination.”

It was the job of the minority counsel to prepare for cross examining witnesses brought by Democrats. Why the AP would cast such a negative light on what was so obviously part of Thompson’s job reveals much about their motives for going with the story in the first place. That and the fact that the historian quoted in the story - Stanley Kutler - an emeritus professor of law at the University of Wisconsin - Madison and author of numerous books on Watergate (guess where his political sympathies lie) seems to believe that any effort by any Republican on the Ervin Committee to defend Nixon should be seen as suspect - despite the fact that it was unclear until August of 1974 that the President was personally involved in the scandal.

This is the biggest non-story regarding Thompson to date and was published simply to tar the Senator with the Watergate mess. By most other objective accounts - including those written by Democrats - Thompson performed honorably and ably on the Committee. And this attempted smear by the AP notwithstanding, that’s how history will remember him during that period.

What these three hit pieces show is that Fred Thompson is a genuine danger to Democrats in the general election. His brand of moderate conservatism would go a long way toward re-uniting the GOP and bringing conservatives back to the fold by election day. While his less than doctrinaire stand on social issues may not play well with that segment of the GOP base, it appears even they are willing to make allowances for a candidate that can bring the Republicans victory in 2008.

No wonder the paragons of liberal virtue in the media seem worried.